anywhither

Pro-form

A pro-form is a type of function word or expression that stands in for (expresses the same content as) another word, phrase, clause, or sentence whose meaning is recoverable from the context. They are used either to avoid repetitive expressions or in quantification (limiting the variables of a proposition).

Pro-forms are divided into several categories according to which part of speech they substitute:

A pro-sentence substitutes an entire sentence or subsentence: Yes or (some have argued) that as in "That is true."

An interrogative pro-form is a pro-form denoting the (unknown) item questioned in a question, and may itself fall into any of the above categories.

One of the most salient features of many modern Indo-European languages is that relative pro-forms and interrogative pro-forms, as well as demonstrative pro-forms in some languages, have identical forms. Consider the two different functions of who in "Who's the criminal who did this?" or the meanings of that in "That's the movie that you saw back home."

Most other language families do not have this ambiguity, nor do several ancient Indo-European languages. For example, both Latin and Ancient Greek distinguish the relative pro-forms from the interrogative pro-forms.

Note that some categories are regular and some are not. They may be regular or irregular also depending on languages. The following chart shows comparison between English, French (irregular), and Japanese (regular):

interrogative

quantifier

existential

negative

human

whoquidare

someonequelqu'undareka

no onepersonnedaremo

nonhuman

whatquenani

somethingquelque chosenanika

nothingriennanimo

location

whereoùdoko

somewherequelque partdokoka

nowherenulle partdokomo

(Note that "daremo", "nanimo" and "dokomo" are universal quantifiers with positive verbs. )

Some languages don't distinguish interrogative and indefinite pro-forms. In Mandarin, "Shéi yǒu wèntí?" means either "Who has a question?" or "Does anyone have a question?" depending on context.